


it isn't impossible

by buries



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:10:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>the thing is, they’re forever seventeen, and being forever seventeen means they have their entire lives ahead of them - or so they say.</i> or the one where stefan and caroline talk about eternity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it isn't impossible

**Author's Note:**

> based on the prompt _and prove that it isn't impossible_ , this was inspired by this gifset. i had written it months ago with every intention of expanding on it, but considering it's been sitting on my computer for what feels like forever, i figured i'd share it. might turn it into a series! i can never resist stefan/caroline. this is also a future fic. ♥

She doesn’t know why they’re here, really, since it’s a stir, repeat of the same cycle they go through every few years whenever they’re bored with trying to be adults. The thing is, they’re forever seventeen, and being forever seventeen means they have their entire lives ahead of them - or so they say.

Stefan’s arm brushes against hers as they walk through the courtyard of a school somewhere in Alabama. She can’t remember the town and she doesn’t have any intentions, despite keeping a scrapbook of all their adventures; things are starting to blur and it’s only been a few decades.

“Isn’t it a little uncool to be crashing a school’s career fair?” Caroline says, happily snatching a pamphlet from a booth about teaching high school education. She has a hand full of pamphlets of different colours and sizes. Stefan isn’t watching where he’s stepping as his eyes are on her hand. “What? I want to keep my options open.” He grins. 

“No,” he says, exhaling. The grin stays on his face. She can’t stop beaming. “It gets us out of the apartment. We get to socialise.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “So going to the museum or, like, a cafe and striking up a conversation isn’t socalising?” 

“Not everyone is as outgoing as you are,” he says, his lips are still curved upward. “Besides, it’s different,” he shrugs. He looks away and her eyes only follow him; she almost walks into him as her entire body seems to gravitate towards being the centre of his attention.

Caroline’s eyebrows pull together as she tries to see through Stefan’s eyes. It’s difficult; she doesn’t ponder the world and brood enough to read him properly, but he’s her favourite book. “ _How?_ ”

Stefan pauses, coming to a stop. She finds herself a foot or so in front of him. She doesn’t turn; his legs are so long that he’s always in front of her and she’s always chasing in an attempt to catch up. She likes being ahead for once. “Coming here,” he doesn’t really look at her as he seems to cave in on himself in a way she’s only seen once or twice, when that steel, steady wall of his cracks a little under all the brooding pressure, “it gives us hope.”

“Hope for what?” She keeps her mouth curved upwards, trying not to pinch her eyebrows together, as, of course, Caroline Forbes understands everything about hope. It’s why she’s here, having dragged him to every corner of the earth. “A paper cut?” she gestures to the brochures in her hands. 

He grins. It’s as if her attempts to make him smile seem to push him back into motion; Stefan starts moving again and she falls into step with him. “No. For the future.”

Caroline glances away, the smile on her lips falling instantly without her pulling the strings to keep it curved. That’s a word she’s never properly applied to herself since a pillow met with her face. “The future.” It doesn’t taste right in her mouth.

“You have one.”

“Do I?” She tilts her head. “Without that expiry date of permanent death, how do I even have a future when all I have is eternity? It’s like being in a desert.” A dark head of hair and a thick build catches Caroline’s attention, her feet stopping momentarily, for a blink of an eye, before the man turns around. His nose is too straight, his chin too jutted out; it’s not him. It never is.

Stefan’s response is a few beats too late to suggest he didn’t see the entire exchange. His eye has always been on Caroline, never quite leaving her, ensuring that she’s safe. It’s the least he can do for her mother. She knows about that; her mother calls and Stefan answers in hushed tones, but they both know she can hear things from a block away. “You can do anything, Caroline. Being what we are doesn’t make that any different.”

“Doesn’t it?” She cocks her head to the side. “What am I supposed to do with my life? I can’t die. I can never be -” she stops herself. She can never be _happy_. She never will be. Maybe that’s the true curse; they may burn in the sun without a slip of magic, but at the end of the day, they’re never happy. Stefan’s a prime example, what with all the hours he spends brooding away in the shadows.

“Whatever you want.”

Caroline rolls her eyes. “Well that's certainly helpful.”

“Okay,” Stefan’s hands come together, out in front of him, like he’s praying. He’s always so patient with her, taking the time to taste the words on his tongue before he speaks to her. It’s like she means something to him, like Stefan saying the right word with the right tone at the right time is something he strives for, like she’s worth the weighing of his words. “How about all those missed opportunities? All those things you've wanted to do but didn't have time? You have all the time in the world, Caroline.”

“But isn't that a bit pointless? I'm going to run out of things to do.”

His eyebrows raise, his face amused, “You'd be surprised.”

With a deep breath in, Caroline picks her shoulders up and lets them fall down. She doesn’t want to dismiss him, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, either; she loves and hates how Stefan can break down her wall built on denial. Caroline’s never been a painter, or an artist like Tyler, but she considers herself one of the best builders of pictures, of pretending everything is rainbows and butterflies when it’s only death and despair. “You really know how to bring a room down.”

He shrugs, looking somewhere over her shoulder before his eyes settle somewhere on her cheek. He grins, “Years of experience.”

She smiles, close-mouthed. She takes the break in conversation to look around the fair, examining the booths, thinking of how they could’ve made this entire event better if they had brighter signs and larger words indicating which booths were for which profession. Her eyes hit on one specific for the media, one of the only signs she’s bothered to look at for more than two seconds. She finds herself talking before she realises what she’s saying, “You know, I'll never get to do the one thing I always wanted to do since I was, like, five.”

“What was that?”

She glances at him, her hand coming out to brush her hair behind her ear. The wind keeps tugging at it, sweeping it into her eyes. “I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I never told my mom because she was never around to listen to me and because I was afraid she wanted me to be a cop like her.”

Stefan’s expression is one of understanding; his eyes and tone soften. “You were afraid of disappointing her.”

Caroline shrugs, looking away, and says a little sarcastically, “Already well accomplished there.”

His eyebrows rise. She sees it because she’s always looking for it, his tone, his face, anything that tells her she’s wrong or right. “You're not a disappointment”

“Aren't I? I can't even follow my own dreams because being in broadcast means being permanently on film forever. No one will forget Audrey Hepburn's face or Marilyn Monroe’s style or James Dean’s hair -” she points up at Stefan’s, where he self-consciously brings his hand up to touch the tips with his fingers, “- because they're always on film. There are repeats. And I know it's big-headed of me to say someone will remember me, but people tune in because they trust that person's face.”

“Is it what you want?”

“I wanted to be a broadcast journalist,” she says, but she feels like that’s a lie. Broadcast was on a whim; going to the career market at Mystic Falls High all those years ago created that impulse to go into broadcast. “I wanted to be a journalist.”

Stefan nods. “I wanted to be a doctor. When people started to notice I wasn't aging, I had to leave. I had to stop doing the good I've always wanted to do. I couldn't help people who needed it because of what we are.” Stefan stops, arms crossing against his chest as he corrects, “Of what I am.” She has a feeling he’s not talking about being a vampire; ageless, immortal, strong. Stefan’s been holding it together well, but once a blood addict, always a blood addict.

“So how do you even cope with that?” She mirrors him, arms crossing over her chest. She tilts her head a little, eyebrows knitting together as she pieces the mystery of Stefan Salvatore together. “Getting what you want but having to leave it?”

“You move on,” he says, glancing at her before his gaze settles on something - or someone - on the side. He doesn’t look at her after that, keeping his arms crossed tightly over his broad chest as his eyes take in the lives before them. They’re so easy to touch, but it’s difficult to keep a strong hold of them. Like water, these people will slip away eventually, even if he’s capable of grabbing hold of one of them. It’s happened many times before; she’s been witness to it, firsthand. “You move to the next location and you start over.”

Caroline shifts a little, looking off to the side in search of what or who he’s so focused on. It’s not that she’s starved for his attention, it’s that she’s starved in knowing who her eternal companion is. “Is that why you are always in high school?”

His gaze returns to her. If she hadn’t been looking, she’d have missed the slight tilt of his shoulders. “I'm bored. Even being in high school is becoming boring.” He starts walking again; she follows, a small step or so behind him. Her arms unfold as his stay locked against his torso. “Living this long - it has its disadvantages as well as its advantages.”

“So what should I do? What am I supposed to do?”

He slows, looking at her, and his arms seem to loosen a little, but they still stick close to his chest. She wants to rip them away; Stefan doesn’t need to hide from her. “Follow your dreams. You have forever to run away from it.”

“And if it's being on TV?” Her eyebrows rise, her voice inches on desperation. Stefan has all the answers, just like her mother, while she’s still learning how to walk in these shoes. She doesn’t want to screw up. She may have eternity, but she only has one shot at doing it right. “I don't want to be like Logan Fell.”

Stefan’s arms unlock. His hands settle on her shoulders. Fingers curling around the bone there, his grip feels like a feather; light, barely there, softer than it should be. “You're nothing like Logan Fell. Your career choices don’t link you together, Caroline.”

It’s a few beats before she replies, his hands have fallen to his sides where his hands slip into the pockets of his jeans, “I don't want people to remember me.”

It’s his turn to tilt his head, his mouth forming a line that she knows is made of sympathy. His eyes are soft as they gaze on her. He takes his time mulling over what he wants to say, giving her a chance to explain, if she wants to. Jumping on her the moment she says something uncomfortable, something borderline self-deprecating, is more Damon or Bonnie’s style. Stefan likes to let things breathe. “You're going to be remembered for other reasons, Caroline.”

A small grin pulls at her mouth. She looks at him with an amused expression, but her voice sounds tired and sad. She tries to hide who she is with someone who only wants her to be true. “You know what I mean.”

He nods his head, glancing down. It’s like he’s searching for the words, or the appropriate memory. She imagines he has so many swimming around in that skull of his. She wonders how he copes with it all, with the things he remembers and the things he can no longer recall. When he glances back up at her, she crosses her arms over her chest, pausing in their walk. He stops, glancing off to the side, but his eyes don’t settle on anyone this time. “Someone remembered me here. When I came back. It's …”

“Awkward.”

His gaze settles on her. “And it's hard to explain, but it happens. You can't control it, Caroline. You can't hold back.” His eyes don’t leave hers. This is the Stefan Salvatore she’s come to know. He might brood and be genuinely depressing in between, but he’s the best pep talker she’s ever had. And it all comes down to the fact that he only wants the best for her. It’s hard to swallow, it’s hard for her to think about, and she finds herself glancing away momentarily to regain her balance. “Don't be afraid to live. You'll regret it.”

“Do you regret it?” She blinks, finding the sun so bright. His hair doesn’t move in the wind. It never does, regardless of where they are. “Not being a McDreamy?”

“Sometimes,” he says, looking over at a booth. The future is here and they can’t take it. They won’t. He turns to look at her, a small smile lighting up his entire face, and it makes her beam just because it’s good to see his mouth turn up rather than sit permanently down. “But I do good here.” His look is pointed and Caroline finds her face heating up.

She thinks about clearing her throat, but instead breathes in, her voice chipper as she says, “Next city we go to, you're so being my doctor. How did you even pass med school?” Her brows knit together. She starts walking again. This time, he’s a few steps behind her, head ducked. She turns around to walk backwards, “You're too hot to be a doctor.”

He grins, tilting his head as he tries to close the distance between them, but Caroline quickens her pace as she continues backwards. “You think I’m McDreamy?”

Throwing her head up, Caroline laughs, spinning around on the spot before grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the medical booth.


End file.
